Here's what I heard:
First, they got rid of the two-weapon fighting. It wasn't really giving the ranger what people wanted. People wanted a wilderness-oriented character, and 3.5E is going to meet that need.
They changed the skill points to give a more wilderness theme, dropped the hit dice to d8, and lowered the attack progression. After all, rangers aren't expected to fight as well as fighters, right?
On the other hand, to compensate for those weaknesses, rangers now have a MUCH better spell selection. You can augment your light armor with Barkskin, heal yourself with Cure Light Wounds at a MUCH lower level, and even use your ranger skills and magic to make areas difficult to get through for anyone without training, using spells like "Spike Stones" and "Wall of Thorns".
Finally, they really put more flavor into the class. Who can forget how Aragorn was able to blend into the crowd during his tenure as Strider? Well, high-level rangers will now get the ability to disguise themselves as an innate ability, blending into their surroundings. They'll also gain the ability to tell whether natural food is healthy or poisonous with just a glance, strong bonuses to checks made to identify or communicate with natural creatures, and even -- you're going to love this -- the ability to use shamanic magic to shapeshift INTO animal form a few times per day, like a kind of natural polymorph!
With all of these changes, the ranger was looking a bit different, so they've renamed it "Druid" in order to really let it sink in.
-Tacky
